The Tuesday before Thanksgiving

It's noon. I just made coffee with our inherited coffee machine, which is missing the actual pot. You have to stand there and trigger the mechanism with a ladle while the coffee drips into a glass bowl, but at least I've got coffee. Outside we have our first dustings of snow, above us, fickle grey clouds and strips of blue sky. Picture the New England Christmas paintings you find wrapped around popcorn tins during the holidays. I'm sitting in one.



My Thanksgiving decorations on the living room table.

Last night I had a proud moment. My Monday night students had a substitute teacher last week so that I could attend Fabi's graduation ceremony. When I returned yesterday, only 2 of 8 students were present. They tried to explain their experience with the sub, and I assisted by teaching them the expression "I couldn't get a word in." So apparently they got stuck with an overbearing English teacher. After class, my star pupil/teacher's pet (whatever you want to call him) - a handsome man in his mid-fifties - shook my hand, patted me on the shoulder and thanked me profusely for leading such an interesting, engaging, and informative class. It was a little awkward, but I thought to myself: well, perhaps I am doing a service to all those poor German businessmen out there. Maybe a non-boring English teacher is exactly what they need. I try to find fulfillment in my job.

This morning I worked for a few hours and then came home to bake and peel a pumpkin for my Thanksgiving pie this weekend. We are celebrating in Göttingen this year with the Kleinbottwar crew. Steffi is driving us up in her old green station wagon, which just barely passed its last inspection. It will be a true road trip! I'm excited to see where Katja and Fabian Joos live. They say it's a really great college town, with a beautiful old quarter and lots of things to do.

When I offered to make Thanksgiving dinner for our weekend visit, Katja immediately started to help me plot the meal. We admittedly chose the easiest recipes, being the amateurs that we are. One member of our group is gluten-intolerant, so that adds an extra challenge, but most of the traditional Eschbacher/Watson dishes are already gluten-free, or can be easily transformed by using a different flour.

The American celebration of Thanksgiving is not listed as a holiday in my German calendar. Every year I draw a little deformed turkey to remind myself to be thankful for my blessings. Despite the fact that I have back-to-back lessons all over God's green earth that day. But, being busy on a national holiday... while living abroad anyway... is better than unemployment. I am thankful!

The rest of my day will be filled with lesson planning - I've got my Wednesday morning accounting ladies in Vaihingen tomorrow, followed by tutoring in Pleidelsheim.

I've yet to tell my workplace(s) that I'm leaving for the States in April. I was trying to wait until we got news of where Fabi's company is sending him for his time abroad next year, but I guess I can already give them the wedding flight details.

Okay, back to Thanksgiving preparations...